Super short stories for those with limited attention spans. Challenges came courtesy of Herc_Xena100 and The Incredible Hercules Random Plot Generator.
Womb / Crossed Signals / Mirror, Mirror / Mother Was Right/ Mine
Challenge: 'Fire'
97 words, PG, Spoilers for "A Necessary Evil"
The ambrosia sang its phoenix song in Callisto's veins, unfurling glorious
wings throughout her already-immortal body. The warmth caressed her. Coddled
her. Tickled her last remaining sliver of sanity and sent it plummeting into
a dark abyss where even bachaae feared to tread.
Or maybe it was just the magma talking.
Watching flesh sing, scorch and char, regenerate, and repeat the process all in the tiny instant before eyeballs boiled, popped, and began again in vain was mildly amusing. Hopefully it would stay that way until Velasca's body managed to swim its way back to Velasca's head.
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Challenge: 'Jinx'
108 words, G
Deimos paced heatedly about the room. "What was the last thing I said before
we tried this transport thing? The very last thing?"
"Since it was very delicate trick and we only had one chance to get it right we should cross our fingers."
"Yes, but I didn't mean it *literally*. It's a figure of speech; a mortal luck thing. You screwed it all up and now we're going to have to grovel big time if we ever want to get switched-" Discord-in-Deimos'-body glanced over to where Deimos-in-Discord's-body was peering down at her bosom and enthusiastically shimmying her shoulders. "Would you knock that off!"
"But they're so bouncy!"
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Challenge: 'Reflections'
100 words, G, Spoilers for 'Judgement Day'
Any other night a lot of needless screaming and struggling would have only
enhanced his performance but this had to look like blind rage, not calculated
torture.
Only now, standing over her supine form, his gleeful verve had left him. Killing a sleeping mortal was beneath him, no matter how big a boost it would give his reputation. What was the challenge? The motivation?
Leaning down, his lips brushed tantalizingly across hers as he spoke. “Ser-e-na.”
Her eyes opened and the glimmer of fearful recognition in them was quickly replaced by Strife's abruptly gore-flecked image.
There, that was much better.
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Challenge: 'Trinity'
113 words, NC-17
"I thought I meant something to you," Joxer said, palms pressed flush to
the altar he was bent over.
"Now whatever gave you that idea?" the god grunted, jerking the mortal's hips back as he thrust into him.
"We always end up like this, but-" he gasped as a hand snaked under him and a fingertip roughly beckoned against his already-bruised nipple. "You did Jace!" he finally hissed.
The hand move to his neck, pushing him even lower. "Uh-huh."
"And Jett?"
"Oh yeah."
"Why?"
"Didn't your mother ever tell you that bad things come in threes?" Teeth bit dully into Joxer's back. "Well baby," Deimos trilled. "I am a *very* bad thing."
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Challenge: 'Athena has a contest with Deimos'. Include the words: observe, kraken, scent
504 words, G
Even the rumble of roiling water couldn't compete with the sounds of chaos. Formerly domestic animals decided the humans could find their own way out and went, braying and bleating, inland and upward. The temple pediment cracked and fell under the stress of the bucking earth. Stone smashed to dust and dust turned to paste in the wet of the encroaching sea.
Observing the demolition through the lopsided gaze of his tilted head, Deimos couldn't help thinking it was all Athena's fault.
A city of your very own can be quite tempting, especially for a god on the lower rungs of the Olympian ladder, but he never actually would have dared trying to scoop Poseidon's neglected turf. He was content to gaze wistfully down on the prime oceanfront property, wondering how much mortal effort it would take to convert the bronze statue in the strait into his own image, starting with shorter hair and a bigger package. Everything would have been fine if Athena hadn't caught him at it.
When an imperious brunette puts her big, kinky boot on your chest and asks you to duel for patronage rights you don't pause for much reflection before saying yes, beyond whether a quick lick and a lascivious comment would be worth the world of hurt and wrath of her daddy.
Of course it would have to be a contest of gifts. With Athena it was always presents, a stupid tree, helpful little battle hints, or something else just as confoundingly benign. Mortals were supposed to worship you because they were in awe or scared shitless of what you could do to them, not because you were *nice*. Zeus didn't get to be top god by popular vote.
The mantle of 'Terror' didn't leave him with much to personally offer either, but there were other ways of leaving your name on the lips of the masses.
Poseidon had been more than obliging; the patronage of Athens was a sore spot still so tender it took only the mildest prod on Deimos' part. Why, what's one little city when you have such a delicious opportunity for revenge? A big goddess like her losing to a flimsy one like him, there might never be a chance like this again.
When the great day had dawned Athena had done her tired, typical trick of sprouting an olive grove in the city square, to the nauseating wonderment of the population, and then it was Deimos' turn.
As Helike went down in a maelstrom of thrashing tentacles and buffeting waves, the screams of its terrified denizens wafted up the hillside where the two deities stood. The sickly sweet scent of fear hung in the air like rancid incense, leaving little doubt as to which god the city belonged to in these final, and forever, moments.
Deimos looked over to the the fuming goddess and smiled blithely. After all, there hadn't been anything in the rules that said he couldn't release the kraken.
